Vasilis Chatzipoulidis,from Greece

Hey guys.I have just joined EFI fundamentals course here in HPA and I am so excited.I am 26 years old.I gratuated Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as an electrical engineer.My passion is to become a proffesional tuner.I can't get feedback for tuning in Greece that's why I have decided to join your Academy.I am novice in tuning and I am a member of Aristotle Racing Team(Formula SAE team).I tune their ECU(MOTEC M800 and I would be glad if you can help me with some functions like traction/launch control).I am really intrested to learn more about reflashing stock ECUs.Nice to meet you all!!Finally, I must thank Mr.Silcock for his time because he helped me so much with his e-mails(Sorry for my English they will get better and better)

Welcome to the forum Vasilis, you should find all you need on here, they've just released the launch control webinar which has some great info in it

Nice to meet you Chris.Yes I have seen that webinar and it would be very useful.Thanks for the info mate

Welcome along Vasilis.

We are currently working on our advanced functions course which will cover traction control and launch control in detail. As always, if there is something specific you want help with, just ask and we will do our best to help you out.

Thanks a lot Andre.I have a project to do with a motec m800.We are building a formula SAE car.I need help on Motec functions and parameters.If I join M1 Motec course will that help me to understand m800 features as well??

What area's do you need help in?

Hey Chris.First of all, what's the creteria for choosing IJPU of the injectors in the fuel base map.Motec suggests 15 ms for N/A.Is there any relation with the injector dead time or not??And if i give a percentage of 80% in the fuel map means that the injector will open for 80% of the 15ms??I dont get the idea of IJPU definition.Moreover,how to set idle control.Do I calibrate fuel map and after that I choose my idle aim or should I calibrate idle functions first and after my fuel and ignition maps.I have a race car.Should I use closed loop for lambda or not??Finally,when do I use launch control and when traction control.I have to participate in endurance event,acceleration event and skidpad event(track is like number eight).Do I use launch control on acceleration and traction on endurance/skidpad.Or both for all tracks with different calibration for each event?Those are some of my questions.This is my first tuning project

First things first, which ECU will you be using and on which motor?

have a look and watch through the webinars as a lot of your issues are covered.

When to use motorsport functions is totally dependant on the event in hand, some have rolling starts which a rolling launch control is handy, some are static, how much power can you lay down and still have traction? For traction control you can allow a certain amount of slip so it could be used for all event's except drifting, you would just need to calibrate it to suit your requirements.

We have a saying 'horses for courses' meaning you might need a different calibration for every track, not completely different so you could add a trim to your original calibration and adjust the trim using a rotary switch.

Closed loop lambda, it's got a few different schools of thought, technically you should be able to control your fuelling all the way to the red line in closed loop but the truth is that once the EGT's go up you start loosing accuracy in the sensor so can't rely on the values.

Thanks a lot for the info and for you time.I have to tune a motec M800 on a honda cbr 600 cc 2007.They dont allow us to have more displacement from the Formula SAE competition and also we the intake should be 20 mm at max so this restriction limits horsepower a lot.Our engine now produces 82 hp at 11.500 RPM and 59 kN at 7500 RPM.No idle control,traction control or launch is used.The guys before me never used PID control.I can send you our maps to check them if you want to

Is there not idle control etc used as part of the regulations or just lack of knowledge?

Of course there are idle,traction/launch control functions but no one tried to build those maps and they are at zero or default.They changed lamda near 2500 RPM(Their idle aim) so to keep engine on that RPM.But first of all idle is not stable(sometimes for 1-2 sec engine jumps on 4500RPM and then comes back to 2500) and it's not smooth at all.Moreover they use 1.3 lambda on idle which I believe it's totally wrong.I am the first one who tries to build those maps and it is difficult because it's my first project as a tuner.I send you an image.This idle is similar to our

map(this one is taken from motec seminars for idle control as a bad tuning example).

Do you know which pid is kicking in that sends the idle up so high?

Lambda 1.3? I would have thought that's far too lean, do you know how much overlap the cams have?

No chris I dont even understand whta a pid is so I cant answer your question.Sorry if it's too easy but I dont know it.And also I dont know the cam ovelrap.I have to use a piezoelectric object instead of a coil to do test where I can obtain pressures,overlaps,opening times of the valves etc.They went 1.3 lambda for saving gas but it is not correct.I will try lambda 0.95 on idle

PID is a control loop system, Proportional, Integral and Derivative adjustments from feed back from sensors

Oh chris I am sorry.I didn't realize that you meant PID control.I read pid and couldnt understand what you were referred to.So, none of those gains is hitting because there are no gains used.Nobody used idle control function before.I am the first one who will build that map.They never used PID control as well.Those guys tried to make an idle aim in fuel map without using idle parameters at all.That's why i have difficulties because I have to do it from nothing.I have to do many modifications in ECU and introduce PID control for the first time

Sounds like you've got a blank canvas, a blessing in disguise

That is true Chris.But as a novice tuner that is difficult for me to make it work.That's why I am asking how will I get the info for building those functions and compensations maps.Through EFI fundamentals I feel confident for map and ignition(I have studied a lot on those maps before EFI fundamentals).I feel uncomfortable with compensations and with the functions that I have mentioned in the beggining of our conversation.Do you know what should I do to be able to build my ECU step by step?

Sorry for the late reply, had a very busy few days. If you first concentrate on the main tune, make sure it runs spot on for the conditions your currently in, after that you'll look into compensations, try to change the conditions external to the engine and see how it affects your tune and use the compensations to bring the tune back to where you left it.

If you have any specific questions ask them in the main tuning forums on here

Ok chris thanks for your interest.I will be more spesific when I will show progress on that project